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Photo by STR/NurPhoto via Getty ImagesAccording to the Pew Research Center, roughly 60% of Twitter users report taking a break from Twitter in the last year. Unfortunately, Pew doesn't compare those numbers to previous years, but the implication is that Twitter's changes have caused defections from the service.There is almost a biblical analogy here, in that the population of Twitter have scattered across many different services, not one of which has the same mass and strength as the original home.Also: I've used social networks since the 80s. Threads is the most annoying one I've triedMy concern is about Twitter, where I still have a considerable audience of followers. From February through May 2023, I saw a precipitous decline in overall engagement with my readers. A big part of that decline was probably caused by a change in how Twitter promotes tweets to its users. According to a tweet from the company on March 27, only those with verified "blue checkmark" accounts will have their tweets show in the For You section of the Twitter feed. That's the only place most people look.Does the blue checkmark perform?Last month, I decided to pay for the Twitter Blue. Doing so was supposed to put

Meta’s Twitter rival, Threads, has unquestionably had the best first-week imaginable. After immediately racing to the top of app store charts, it became the fastest growing app of all time. In just five days, it grew to more than 100 million users, beating out chatGPT and TikTok which both previously held the record. That’s even more impressive considering the app isn’t available in the European Union, one of Meta’s most important markets. And while Threads clearly borrowed some moves from Meta’s growth-hacking playbook, like sending would-be users notifications on Instagram and pre-populating their feeds with content and followers, Mark Zuckerberg called most of the early growth “organic.” “That's mostly organic demand and we haven't even turned on many promotions yet,” he wrote in a celebratory post on Threads. However you spin it, it's clearly bad news for Twitter. While it’s too soon to know if Threads’ early success will translate in the long term, it has succeeded in utterly dominating Twitter in its first week. Every available metric suggests that Threads is not just a viral hit in its own right, but is doing so at the direct expense of Twitter. Just days after Threads launched, Matthew Prince, CEO of

Some Twitter users reported on Wednesday morning that the platform was experiencing problems loading tweets, raising speculation that Twitter could be down.Downdetector.com said that by 10:31 a.m. EST it had received over 4,000 reports of Twitter problems. Earlier, around 9:01 a.m. EST, there were only 44 reports.By 10:38 a.m. EST, Downdetector showed over 7,000 reports of Twitter being down, but by 11:08 a.m. the number had fallen to just over 400.Several commenters on Downdetector said they were having problems loading tweets."Won't load tweets," one wrote. Another said, "Bruh i can't see tweets that a profile post." Twitter users were reporting loading problems on Wednesday morning. iStock / Getty Images Newsweek reached out to Twitter via email for comment.Recently, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the release of Threads, a social media platform that seeks to rival Twitter."Whether you're a creator or a casual poster, Threads offers a new, separate space for real-time updates and public conversations. We are working toward making Threads compatible with the open, interoperable social networks that we believe can shape the future of the internet," Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, said in a press release.Threads allows users to connect their Instagram account to the application and

Scott Polacek@@ScottPolacekTwitter LogoFeatured Columnist IVJuly 12, 2023Steph Chambers/Getty ImagesTalk about an All-Star Game debut for Elias Díaz.The Colorado Rockies' 32-year-old catcher was the hero of Tuesday's MLB All-Star Game at T-Mobile Park in Seattle. He launched a two-run homer off Félix Bautista of the Baltimore Orioles in the top of the eighth inning to give the National League a 3-2 lead.Josh Hader and Craig Kimbrel—who struck out José Ramírez to end the game—closed the door on the mound from there, and the Senior Circuit snapped a nine-game losing streak in the All-Star Game with the 3-2 victory.Social media had nothing but love for Díaz's dramatic moment:Colorado Rockies @RockiesTHAT'S OUR ALL-STAR!!! pic.twitter.com/pAAmiKxv51CBS Sports @CBSSportsElias Díaz signed with the Pirates for $20,000 out of Venezuela.Spent most of his career as a backup.Non-tendered by the Pirates in 2019.Signed a minor league contract with Colorado in 2020.Díaz just hit a go-ahead HR in the 8th inning of his first career All-Star game. pic.twitter.com/NmGZOHy07jbr_betting @br_bettingI swear if one of you send us an Elias Diaz All-Star Game MVP ticket… 😂Ryan Fagan @ryanfaganI really do love it when a "wait, this guy is an All-Star?" guy comes up with a really big moment in the All-Star

A German court has ruled that a lawsuit accusing Twitter of allowing hateful content to proliferate on its platform can go ahead, adding yet another challenge for the embattled social media giant.The European Union of Jewish Students and German digital advocacy group HateAid first petitioned the courts against the microblogging service this January, alleging that its “insufficient moderation of content” violated German criminal law and that the San Francisco-based company had declined to remove six racist and violent tweets which violated its terms of use.Why Israel is shielding Elon Musk from accusations of antisemitismSmelling a rat in the rantings of Tucker Carlson and Roger WatersGermany averaged almost 7 antisemitic incidents per day in 2022“Twitter has betrayed our trust. By allowing hateful content to spread, the company fails to protect users, and Jews in particular,” EUJS president Avital Grinberg said earlier this year when her organization first petitioned the court to accept the suit. “What starts online does not end there. Twitter cultivates real hate and violence, and as such, disregards our democratic values.”Since being informed that the suit will go forward, Twitter has removed several of the offending tweets and both parties are awaiting an announcement regarding venue, EUJS told

Users who shared links to a waitlist for the Arkham service had their email addresses exposed on Twitter due to how the references were encoded. Arkham, a “blockchain intelligence company,” announced what it’s calling the “world’s first on-chain intelligence exchange” on July 10 alongside the launch of a new coin, ARKM, through Binance’s Launchpad service.Crypto Twitter has had a predictably split response to the announcement, with negative sentiment surrounding Arkham’s purported mission to “deanonymize the blockchain” causing some ire. Chief among the complaints, many of which describe the company’s Intel Exchange as a “snitch-to-earn” or “snitching-as-a-service” program, involves Arkham's perceived role as a centralized intelligence agency.Fuck this.It's not even the snitch-to-earn component that I'm entirely against (it is useful as a decentralized whistleblowing dapp for public good).The submissions end up on Arkham + Arkham Fnd is the central arbiter.Someone should fork the contracts and decentralize this. https://t.co/hnfehiukd9— Hudson Jameson (@hudsonjameson) July 10, 2023 As Arkham stated in its announcement thread, there are numerous positive use cases for the utilization of blockchain sleuths as information brokers. However, some experts are concerned about the potential for misuse that the exchange’s proposed business model appears to follow. According to Arkham, users will be

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Meta Threads app logo is placed on broken Twitter app logo in this illustration taken, July 7, 2023. | Photo Credit: REUTERS Threads, Meta’s latest microblogging platform, has taken the social media world by storm, amassing 100 million users in just over two days. This rapid rise to popularity has had a significant impact on Twitter. According to Matthew Prince, CEO of Cloudflare, Twitter has been grappling with a noticeable decline in traffic since the beginning of 2023. Now, with the launch of the Threads app, Twitter’s traffic seems to have taken another huge hit.Cloudflare’s data reveals that Twitter has now slipped to the 37th position in domain ranking, a significant drop from its more favourable 32nd position at the start of the year. This sharp decline strongly indicates that Twitter is losing its once strong user base, and the launch of Threads has contributed further to this downward trend.(For top technology news of the day, subscribe to our tech newsletter Today’s Cache)Also Read | Meta’s Threads signs up 30 million users, in clear threat to Musk-owned TwitterThe decline in Twitter’s popularity can be partly attributed to the controversial changes implemented by its new owner, Elon Musk, following his acquisition of

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Elon Musk looks on during his visit to the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images Elon Musk looks on during his visit to the Vivatech technology startups and innovation fair at the Porte de Versailles exhibition center in Paris on June 16. Alain Jocard/AFP via Getty Images The account suspended from Twitter last year for tracking the movements of Elon Musk's private jet has landed on a rival social media app: Threads. "Elon Musk's Jet" made its first post to the new site last week, with owner Jack Sweeney writing: "ElonJet has arrived to Threads!" An offshoot of Instagram, Threads debuted on Wednesday and allows users to post text. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a post on Friday that the app already had 70 million new sign-ups. Also on Wednesday, an attorney for Musk-owned Twitter said the website may take legal action against Threads, accusing the app of "systematic, willful, and unlawful misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets and other intellectual property." Meta officials have dismissed the allegations, with communications director Andy Stone saying